utility customers; there are less than 1,000 private net metered customers, and half of them are located in Lexington and Louisville. White argues that a vote in favor of HB 227 is "a vote to make sure the people of Eastern Kentucky are not paying more on their utility bills to fund the growth of private solar for the wealthy in Lexington and Louisville." By March 2018, Kentucky legislators "continue to wrestle over a plan to sharply reduce the amount utilities pay customers who sell excess solar power to their local utilities." The bill was approved by the House Natural Resources and Energy Committee but has not yet been debated on or voted on in the Kentucky House of Representatives. According to Daily Energy Insider, "A major question is whether, under the state’s current net metering law, the vast majority of ratepayers are subsidizing the cost of maintaining the regional grid for the relatively few customers with solar energy systems who are connected to it." In Kentucky, homeowners who have rooftop solar sell their surplus electricity back to utility companies at the retail rate (the rate the utility charges the customer, not the rate the utility purchases electricity). Maine A coalition of pro-solar groups filed a lawsuit in September 2018 against the Maine Public Utilities Commission. The coalition argued that regulators violated the law when they approved rules that would increase the costs of solar customers connecting to the electric grid. In Maine, the two major issues regarding retail rates and net metering programs were how to deal with CMP reaching 1 percent of peak load net metering cap and the real value of solar. The Alliance for Solar Choice stated that it would prefer to see net metering kept intact until the policy produces solar growth. In 2016, solar companies and major utility companies came to a legislative agreement over net metering issues. The two sides said that their deal might increase solar power in Maine "tenfold in five years." In response, several national solar companies paid for lobbyists to travel to Maine and attempt to persuade state legislators to stop the deal. The legislation would replace net metering with a concept referred to as "next metering." Under next metering, regulators would set the rates that utilities pay residential solar customers for the customers' excess energy. (Under normal net metering, utilities would pay the wholesale rate). The legislation includes